Used 5ch Amp (Classe, Krell, Rotel)


Looking for a really good used 5 channel amp. I do not want to spend $1000ss on a brand new amp.
So far my brief research has led me to Classe 5200 and Krell Chorus 5200 and they are a little pricy even used. Not sure if I want to pay 4k for a krell or classe yet! I have listened to Parasound & Mac but I did not prefer its darkish sound. Currently I have dynaudio c20 speakers as 2ch and Paradigm center and 4 towers in the back and they are being powered by Rotel RMB 1075 and the preamp section is Arcam AVR 550. I do 50% music & 50% movies. Again looking for an amp that will sound much better than my current Rotel RMB 1075 amp! Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!
danimaz

Showing 1 response by ttocs

danimaz, I've got previous gen Krell, and Emotiva. Frankly, Emotiva performs better than their specs would lead you to believe. You can get new Gen3 amps which will perform very well, with a 30 day money back return if not happy. It'll do great for home theater, and probably do very well for music with most speakers.

Stepping up, the DR series amps sound better for music but only go to 3 channels, so you'd need a 2 more channels. Frankly, for me, the surrounds don't need much of an amp for movies, I use a very old 2 channel receiver for my back surrounds, but that's because I care most for 2 channel music. It's different if you want to listen to multi-channel music because matched-set of amps and matched-set of speakers makes more sense.

So if it's 50% "2 channel" music and 50% movies, maybe get the quality for the 2 channels and get the not as great amplification for the surrounds. Just a thought.

Finally, taking the time to help someone oughta be to do just that, help.